My Happy Ending
by xShanastay
Summary: Things seldom turn out the way you hope or expect. All is not well in the House of Snape. Oneshot songfic inspired by Avril Lavigne's My Happy Ending. Nominated for Best Infidelity & Breakup at The Sorting Hat: Harry Potter Thematic Fanfiction Awards.


A/N: This takes place about 10 years after the events of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The war has been over for almost as long, with the Boy-Who-Lived victorious over the Dark Lord. Many perished in the final battle but the Trio managed to survive, in a manner of speaking. Hermione and Severus have been together for the last 5 years, the Potions master having been cleared of murder charges, in no small part, by evidence presented by Granger herself. Life the past few years for Hermione has been like the proverbial fairy tale. But real life, unfortunately, seldom ends like the storybooks.

Song credit goes to Avril Lavigne for _My Happy Ending._

**_My Happy Ending _**by Shanastay

_Oh oh, _

_(So much for my happy ending)  
Oh oh, oh oh..._

_(So much for my happy ending)  
Oh oh, oh._

The enormous, empty ingredient jar exploded against the stone wall next to Snape's head, sending dangerous shards flying everywhere. A protective shield firmly in place, the Potions master didn't so much as flinch in the face of the firestorm of fury that was his wife of the last three years. He actually appeared rather bored by the entire scene.

Hermione stood red-faced and panting opposite the tall man, her hands clenched painfully into fists, nails cutting bleeding crescents into her palms. Her last cries of outrage still echoed about the cellar potions lab they shared in their collaborative research. Her normally carefully tended curls stood out from her head in disarray, her caramel eyes red from many tears and nostrils flaring with every labored breath.

She was the embodiment of a Gryffindor lioness, breathtaking in her rage, and Severus could not hold back the involuntary reaction of his body to the vision she presented. He hid this from her with robes protectively mantled.

_Earlier that day…_

Hermione sat opposite Harry at a table in a café near the Leaky Cauldron. The arms of his wheelchair were just visible past the tabletop. He had lost the use of the lower half of his body in the final confrontation of the war. But it wasn't the messy-haired young man's partially paralyzed state that commanded the brunette's attention. Harry's handicap was something she no longer consciously noticed. No, it was a copy of _Potions Monthly_ that had her undivided interest.

"I can't believe that he'd do this. Not now. Not after everything…"

"How much more proof do you need?" the raven-haired man cut into the witch's mutterings. "It was only by chance that Ron happened on this." The mention of their permanently institutionalized friend caused both to wince visibly. The youngest male Weasley had suffered extensive spell damage, resulting in an uncontrollable, violent form of manic depression. He was a danger to both himself and others. Then again, there were times he seemed every bit the smart-mouthed friend they remembered. The redhead would never again leave the confines of his rooms in St. Mungo's.

"Yes, I admit this is bad. This is an unbelievable betrayal. But how does this prove infidelity as well?" Hermione lifted her brimming eyes to her friend's green gaze.

His answer was to point to the byline and the documented coauthor of the article that was the basis for their current discussion. "Do you really think he _isn't_ sleeping with _her_?"

The witch's face twisted painfully as she screwed it up in an attempt to hold back the threatening tears. Several deep breaths later she had herself back under control. She stood, taking the magazine with her. As she passed she reached out a hand to pat Harry's shoulder. "Thank you. Really. I need to talk to him about this. Please, let me handle it."

The wizard gave her a weak smile and reached up to squeeze her hand reassuringly.

_Some time later…_

_Let's talk this over  
It's not like we're dead  
Was it something I did?  
Was it something you said?_

Hermione slapped the periodical opened to the offending page down on the tabletop right under Severus' nose, her finger drifting down to point at the names on the byline under the article on the page. "Care to explain this?"

"No." He brushed her off like it was nothing of importance or consequence, returning his attention to what he'd been working on.

"Severus! This is _our_ work, _our_ theories. How could you publish this without my input and actually have _her_ name on it?"

_Don't leave me hanging  
In a city so dead  
Held up so high  
On such a breakable thread  
_  
Losing what little patience she had, Hermione reached out and swept the contents of the workstation onto the floor. With nothing else before him, Severus had no choice but to give her his attention. Or so she believed.

Instead of acknowledging her behavior, Snape stared blankly straight ahead. He gave no indication that he was even aware of her presence. It wasn't until she reached out and grasped his chin, physically forcing him to turn his face toward her, that he met her gaze.

_You were all the things I thought I knew  
And I thought we could be_

The witch gasped at the utter emptiness she perceived in her husband and partner's eyes. The tears she thought she'd finished with again rose to overflow. Her voice trembling, she choked out, "Why?"

_You were everything, everything that I wanted  
We were meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it  
And all the memories, so close to me, just fade away_

"Why not?" His words were a silky whisper.

She let go of him, stumbling back, wide-eyed in her disbelief.

"I am Slytherin. You knew that," he said in what seemed to be his idea of an explanation.

_All this time you were pretending  
So much for my happy ending  
Oh oh, oh oh, oh oh..._

_So much for my happy ending  
Oh oh._

Hermione stood frozen in disbelief, not wanting to accept the idea that she had been so thoroughly deceived. In both physical and emotional pain, her eyes squeezed shut, the threatening tears escaping to lay wet tracks down her face.

Severus rose from his seat and stepped over to her. With the back of a finger he wiped away a falling tear. She trembled under his touch as he leaned in to whisper in her ear. "You didn't actually believe I could love a bushy-haired know-it-all, did you?"

_You've got your dumb friends  
I know what they say  
They tell you I'm difficult  
But so are they  
But they don't know me  
Do they even know you?_

Rising to the bait, Hermione's eyes snapped open, her rage clear for any to see. She gave nothing away as she stepped back, drew and let fly with a right uppercut to Snape's chin.

The blow sent the tall man staggering back several paces as he regained his equilibrium. The bloody chit hit like a prizefighter.

"You bastard," she hissed in a voice that would have done Voldemort proud.

_All the things you hide from me  
All the shit that you do_

Everything she had been through with him, starting with her first year at Hogwarts, flashed through her mind.

_You were all the things I thought I knew  
And I thought we could be_

All the insults, the deceptions, the living on the edge, the truth about Dumbledore. Was that even the truth? Nothing seemed to make sense, to be real anymore. She was questioning everything she had ever known in that moment.

_You were everything, everything that I wanted_

She had admired him from afar. Amazed at the fortitude and staidness he displayed in the face of overwhelming adversity. He displayed every bit as much courage in returning to the Dark Lord's side, even as he betrayed the man, as any born Gryffindor. The admiration had grown into a deeply simmering desire.

Years after Voldemort's defeat, she had found that carefully guarded fantasy fulfilled. More than fulfilled. Severus had exceeded her every expectation that first time. During the course of that fateful night, their lovemaking had run the gamut from slow and tender to wild and animalistic.

_We were meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it_

Not lovemaking, she realized now. It was just sex. It was all the better because he had a young and willing witch in his arms for a change. All this time he'd just been using her. Every sweet and tender memory was now stained with the tinge of deception, twisted horribly beyond recognition.

_And all the memories, so close to me, just fade away  
All this time you were pretending  
So much for my happy ending_

Snape just stood there, immovable and unreadable as always. No, not always. Over the last three years, Hermione had gained an uncanny ability to read the wizard. But now, now he was giving absolutely nothing away. He was an utterly blank slate, and somehow that was all the more unnerving than a bellowing rage. He should have been angry, amused, embarrassed, chagrined, _something_.

All this did was spur the petite witch into a greater rage. "Talk to me! Yell at me! Do something, anything, other than just stand there staring at me!" Her raised voice had taken on a maniacal quality. Taking hold of the nearest object to her, she hurled the large specimen jar directly at her husband's head.

Having anticipated the move and already erected a shield, the jar glanced off the barrier, shattering against the stones beside him. He didn't react, didn't retaliate. He deserved this and so much more.

_It's nice to know you were there  
Thanks for acting like you cared  
And making me feel like I was the only one_

The witch howled incomprehensibly in the throes of an emotional pain she had never experienced before. Her carefully constructed world was falling down around her ears, and she could not quite believe how thoroughly she had failed in this endeavor. The definition of Murphy's Law rang in her ears, the voice speaking it sounding disturbingly like that of the man she had come to love beyond all reason.

"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."

And then, Kahn's Corollary to Murphy's Law. "Two wrongs are just the beginning, and they tend to come in threes."

Threes it was. First Harry's paralysis, then Ron's psychosis. She hadn't been able to protect her friends in the end. She had failed there. And now, just when things seemed so right, just when she had everything she ever wanted, she was hit with the ultimate betrayal and her own inability to keep her husband happy and faithful. She had failed, utterly and totally.

_It's nice to know we had it all  
Thanks for watching as I fall  
And letting me know we were done_

She lost it.

In the magical firestorm that followed the powerful witch's control snapping, everything breakable surrounding her imploded, shards of glass flying everywhere. Magically fueled winds whipped around her slight frame and fanned the fires that broke out as ingredients that should not be mixed came into contact with each other.

Through it all Snape stood unmoving, seemingly oblivious to it all.

_He was everything, everything that I wanted  
We were meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it_

"I HATE YOU!" The magic-enhanced scream shook the rafters, dust drifting in trails down from the ceiling. "I _HATE_ YOU!"

_And all the memories, so close to me, just fade away  
All this time you were pretending  
So much for my happy ending_

It was then, tears tracking down her face, that Hermione turned and fled. She dashed up the stairs, out of the cellar and out of the house, racing blindly through the empty streets, her feet taking her away from the site of so many just recently sweet memories. She couldn't Apparate, not in her agitated state, without splinching herself. The house on Spinner's End had become a house of horrors to the small woman. She would send someone else to collect whatever remained of her belongings, assuming she still wanted anything from that house.

_You were everything, everything that I wanted  
We were meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it  
And all the memories, so close to me, just fade away_

Amidst the flames and potentially noxious fumes, Snape stood still as a marble statue. It wasn't until a shadow detached itself from a corner that he moved, turning toward it.

The form, gliding silently forward, waved its wand a few times to dispel the carnage Hermione had wrought. Emerging into the dim light, it revealed itself to be the wheelchair-bound outline of Harry Potter, who was smirking grimly at the Potions master. Coming to a halt before the dark man, he began clapping slowly, sarcastically.

"Brilliant, Snape. Absolutely brilliant." He dropped his hands to his lap. "I honestly didn't think you had it in you." He smirked malevolently.

_All this time you were pretending  
So much for my happy ending_

"I have fulfilled my debt to you. Release me." The Potions master's words held barely veiled malice.

Potter raised one brow in a carefully crafted mockery of Snape's trademark expression. "That you have, Severus. That you have."

The tall man winced at the younger wizard's use of his given name.

"You more than exceeded my expectations."

"Release me!" It was a threat, thinly veiled by the command in his hissed voice.

Smirking, Potter carelessly waved a hand. "I hold your obligation to me fulfilled. I release you from your Wizarding debt to me."

_Oh oh, oh oh, oh oh..._

_So much for my happy ending_

With that final word, Severus spun on his heel and strode out of the room, leaving a darkly chuckling Harry Potter behind.

The young man broke off his laughter suddenly, muttering to himself. "Hermione, Hermione, Hermione. You didn't really think you would get to live 'Happily Ever After,' now did you?" Smiling to himself, he Apparated back to his flat in Hogsmeade, knowing his friend would eventually seek him out there, where she would find solace in his arms.

_Oh oh, oh oh, oh oh..._

_So much for my happy ending_

A/N: Sick, sad and wrong, I know. Somehow I couldn't resist that bit of plot twist. I've written this as a one shot, but I'm willing to entertain thoughts of a sequel if readers are interested. I do realize that I've raised more questions than I've answered.

Please, do leave a review and let me know what you think, even if you don't like what I made them do. I promise, I had very good reasons… cackles maniacally


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